8th edition
Steven P. Robbins
Mary Coulter
LEARNING OUTLINE
Follow this Learning Outline as you read and study this chapter.
Why Look at Individual Behavior?
● Describe the focus and the goals of organizational
behavior.
● Explain why the concept of an organization as an
iceberg is important to understanding organizational
behavior.
● Define the five important employee behaviors that
managers want to explain, predict, and influence.
Attitudes
● Describe the three components of an attitude.
● Discuss three job-related attitudes.
● Describe the impact of job satisfaction has on employee
behavior.
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L E A R N I N G O U T L I N E (cont’d)
Follow this Learning Outline as you read and study this chapter.
Attitudes (cont’d)
● Explain how individuals reconcile inconsistencies
between attitudes and behavior.
Personality
● Contrast the MBTI and the big-five model of personality.
● Describe the five personality traits that have proved to
be most powerful in explaining individual behavior in
organizations.
● Tell how emotions and emotional intelligence impact
behavior.
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L E A R N I N G O U T L I N E (cont’d)
Follow this Learning Outline as you read and study this chapter.
Perception
● Explain how an understanding of perception can help
managers better understand individual behavior.
● Describe the key elements of attribution theory.
● Discuss how the fundamental attribution error and
self-serving bias can distort attributions.
● Name three shortcuts used in judging others.
Learning
● Explain how operant conditioning helps managers
understand, predict, and influence behavior.
● Describe the implications of social learning theory for
managing people at work.
● Discuss how managers can shape behavior.
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Understanding Individual Behavior
• Organizational Behavior (OB)
The actions of people at work
• Dual Focus of OB
Individual behavior
❖ Attitudes, personality, perception, learning, and
motivation
Group behavior
❖ Norms, roles, team building, leadership, and conflict
• Goals of OB
To explain, predict and influence behavior
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Important Employee Behaviors
• Employee Productivity
A performance measure of both efficiency and
effectiveness
• Absenteeism
The failure to report to work when expected
• Turnover
The voluntary and involuntary
permanent withdrawal from
an organization
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Important Employee Behaviors
• Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB)
Discretionary behavior that is not a part of an
employee’s formal job requirements, but which
promotes the effective functioning of the organization.
• Job Satisfaction
The individual’s general attitude
toward his or her job
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e
r
Psychological Factors Affecting
s
Employee
o
Behavior
n
a • Employee
l Productivity
i
• Absenteeism
t
y • Turnover
• Organizational
•P
Citizenship
e
r • Job Satisfaction
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e 8
Psychological Factors
• Attitudes
Evaluative statements—either favorable or
unfavorable—concerning objects, people, or events.
• Components Of An Attitude
Cognitive component: the beliefs, opinions,
knowledge, or information held by a person.
Affective component: the emotional or feeling part
of an attitude.
Behavioral component: the intention to behave in a
certain way.
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Psychological Factors (cont’d)
• Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction is affected by level of income earned
and by the type of job a worker does.
• Job Satisfaction and Productivity
For individuals, productivity appears to lead to job
satisfaction.
For organizations, those with more satisfied
employees are more effective than those with less
satisfied employees.
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Psychological Factors (cont’d)
• Job Satisfaction and Absenteeism
Satisfied employees tend to have lower levels of
absenteeism.
• Job Satisfaction and Turnover
Satisfied employees have lower levels of turnover;
dissatisfied employees have higher levels of turnover.
Turnover is affected by the level of employee
performance.
❖ The preferential treatment afforded superior employees
makes satisfaction less important in predicting their
turnover decisions.
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Psychological Factors (cont’d)
• Job Satisfaction and Customer Satisfaction
The level of job satisfaction for frontline employees is
related to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Interaction with dissatisfied customers can increase
an employee’s job dissatisfaction.
Actions to increase job satisfaction for customer
service workers:
❖ Hire upbeat and friendly employees.
❖ Reward superior customer service.
❖ Provide a positive work climate.
❖ Use attitude surveys to track employee satisfaction.
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Psychological Factors (cont’d)
• Job Involvement
The degree to which an employee identifies with his
or her job, actively participates in it, and considers his
or her performance to be important to his or her
self-worth.
❖ High levels of commitment are related to fewer
absences and lower resignation rates.
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Psychological Factors (cont’d)
• Organizational Commitment
Is the degree to which an employee identifies with a
particular organization and its goals and wishes to
maintain membership in the organization.
Leads to lower levels of both absenteeism and
turnover.
Could be becoming an outmoded measure as the
number of workers who change employers increases.
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Psychological Factors (cont’d)
• Perceived Organizational Support
Is the general belief of employees that their
organization values their contribution and cares about
their well-being.
Represents the commitment of the organization to the
employee.
Providing high levels of support increases job
satisfaction and lower turnover.
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Attitude Surveys
• Attitude Surveys
A instrument/document that presents employees with
a set of statements or questions eliciting how they feel
about their jobs, work groups, supervisors, or their
organization.
Provide management with feedback on employee
perceptions of the organization and their jobs.
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Attitudes and Consistency
• People seek consistency in two ways:
Consistency among their attitudes.
Consistency between their attitudes and behaviors.
• If an inconsistency arises, individuals:
Alter their attitudes
or
Alter their behavior
or
Develop a rationalization for the inconsistency
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Cognitive Dissonance Theory
• Cognitive Dissonance
Any incompatibility or inconsistency between attitudes
or between behavior and attitudes.
❖ Any form of inconsistency is uncomfortable and
individuals will try to reduce the dissonance.
The intensity of the desire to reduce the dissonance is
influenced by:
❖ The importance of the factors creating the dissonance.
❖ The degree to which an individual believes that the
factors causing the dissonance are controllable.
❖ Rewards available to compensate for the dissonance.
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The Importance of Attitudes
• Implication for Managers
Attitudes warn of potential behavioral problems:
❖ Managers should do things that generate the positive
attitudes that reduce absenteeism and turnover.
Attitudes influence behaviors of employees:
❖ Managers should focus on helping employees become
more productive to increase job satisfaction.
Employees will try to reduce dissonance unless:
❖ Managers identify the external sources of dissonance.
❖ Managers provide rewards compensating for the
dissonance.
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Personality
• Personality
The unique combination of psychological
characteristics (measurable traits) that affect how a
person reacts and interacts with others.
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Classifying Personality Traits
• Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
A general personality assessment tool that
measures the personality of an individual using
four categories:
❖ Social interaction: Extrovert or Introvert
(E or I)
❖ Preference for gathering data: Sensing or Intuitive
(S or N)
❖ Preference for decision making: Feeling or Thinking
(F or T)
❖ Style of decision making: Perceptive or Judgmental
(P or J)
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The Big Five Model
• Extraversion • Emotional Stability
Sociable, talkative, and Calm, enthusiastic, and
assertive secure or tense, nervous,
and insecure
• Agreeableness
Good-natured, • Openness to Experience
cooperative, and trusting Imaginative, artistically
sensitive, and intellectual
• Conscientiousness
Responsible, dependable,
persistent, and
achievement oriented
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Other Personality Insights
• Locus of Control
External locus: persons who believe that what
happens to them is due to luck or chance (the
uncontrollable effects of outside forces) .
Internal locus: persons who believe that they control
their own destiny.
• Machiavellianism (Mach)
The degree to which an individual is pragmatic,
maintains emotional distance, and seeks to gain and
manipulate power—”the ends justify the means”.
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Other Personality Insights (cont’d)
• Self-Esteem (SE)
The degree to which people like or dislike themselves
High SEs
❖ Believe in themselves and expect success.
❖ Take more risks and use unconventional approaches.
❖ Are more satisfied with their jobs than Low SEs.
Low SEs
❖ Are more susceptible to external influences.
❖ Depend on positive evaluations from others.
❖ Are more prone to conform than high SEs.
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Other Personality Insights (cont’d)
• Self-Monitoring
An individual’s ability to adjust his or her behavior to
external, situational factors.
High self-monitors:
❖ Are sensitive to external cues and behave differently in
different situations.
❖ Can present contradictory public persona and private
selves.
Low self-monitors
❖ Do not adjust their behavior to the situation.
❖ Are behaviorally consistent in public and private.
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Other Personality Insights (cont’d)
• Risk-Taking
The propensity (willingness) to take risks.
❖ High risk-takers take less time and require less
information than low risk-takers when making a
decision.
Organizational effectiveness is maximized when the
risk-taking propensity of a manager is aligned with
the specific demands of the job assigned to the
manager.
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Emotions and Intelligence
• Emotions
Intense feelings (reactions) that are directed at
specific objects (someone or something)
Universal emotions:
❖ Anger
❖ Fear
❖ Sadness
❖ Happiness
❖ Disgust
❖ Surprise
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Emotions and Intelligence
• Emotional Intelligence (EI)
An assortment of noncognitive skills, capabilities, and
competencies that influence a person’s ability to
succeed in coping with environmental demands and
pressures.
Dimensions of EI:
❖ Self-awareness: knowing what you’re feeling
❖ Self-management: managing emotions and impulses
❖ Self-motivation: persisting despite setbacks and failures
❖ Empathy: sensing how others are feeling
❖ Social skills: handling the emotions of others
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Understanding Personality Differences
• Personality-Job Fit Theory (Holland)
An employee’s job satisfaction and likelihood of
turnover depends on the compatibility of the
employee’s personality and occupation.
Key points of the theory:
❖ There are differences in personalities.
❖ There are different types of jobs.
❖ Job satisfaction and turnover are related to the match
between personality and job for an individual.
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Perception
• Perception
A process by which individuals give meaning (reality)
to their environment by organizing and interpreting
their sensory impressions.
• Factors influencing perception:
The perceiver’s personal characteristics—interests,
biases and expectations
The target’s characteristics—distinctiveness, contrast,
and similarity)
The situation (context) factors—place, time,
location—draw attention or distract from the target
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How We Perceive People
• Attribution Theory
How the actions of individuals are perceived by others
depends on what meaning (causation) we attribute to a
given behavior.
❖ Internally caused behavior: under the individual’s control
❖ Externally caused behavior: due to outside factors
Determining the source of behaviors:
❖ Distinctiveness: different behaviors in different situations
❖ Consensus: behaviors similar to others in same situation
❖ Consistency: regularity of the same behavior
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How We Perceive People (cont’d)
• Attribution Theory (cont’d)
Fundamental attribution error
❖ The tendency to underestimate the influence of external
factors and to overestimate the influence of internal or
personal factors.
Self-serving bias
❖ The tendency of individuals to attribute their successes to
internal factors while blaming personal failures on external
factors.
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Shortcuts Used in Judging Others
• Assumed Similarity
Assuming that others are more like us than they
actually are.
• Stereotyping
Judging someone on the basis of our perception of a
group he or she is a part of.
• Halo Effect
Forming a general impression of a person on the
basis of a single characteristic of that person
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Learning
• Learning
Any relatively permanent change in behavior that
occurs as a result of experience.
❖ Almost all complex behavior is learned.
❖ Learning is a continuous, life-long process.
❖ The principles of learning can be used to shape
behavior
Theories of learning:
❖ Operant conditioning
❖ Social learning
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Learning (cont’d)
• Operant Conditioning (B.F. Skinner)
The theory that behavior is a function of its
consequences and is learned through experience.
Operant behavior: voluntary or learned behaviors
❖ Behaviors are learned by making rewards contingent to
behaviors.
❖ Behavior that is rewarded (positively reinforced) is likely
to be repeated.
❖ Behavior that is punished or ignored is less likely to be
repeated.
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Learning (cont’d)
• Social Learning
The theory that individuals learn through their
observations of others and through their direct
experiences.
Attributes of models that influence learning:
❖ Attentional: the attractiveness or similarity of the model
❖ Retention: how well the model can be recalled
❖ Motor reproduction: the reproducibility of the model’s
actions
❖ Reinforcement: the rewards associated with learning the
model behavior
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Learning (cont’d)
• Shaping Behavior
Attempting to “mold” individuals by guiding their
learning in graduated steps such that they learn to
behave in ways that most benefit the organization.
Shaping methods:
❖ Positive reinforcement: rewarding desired behaviors
❖ Negative reinforcement
❖ Punishment
❖ Extinction
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Learning (cont’d)
• Shaping Behavior
Attempting to “mold” individuals by guiding their
learning in graduated steps such that they learn to
behave in ways that most benefit the organization.
Shaping methods:
❖ Positive reinforcement: rewarding desired behaviors.
❖ Negative reinforcement: removing an unpleasant
consequence once the desired behavior is exhibited.
❖ Punishment: penalizing an undesired behavior.
❖ Extinction: eliminating a reinforcement for an undesired
behavior.
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